Summing Up Alberto Gonzales' Official Misconduct

In its Tuesday editorial, the New York Times does a good job of summing up in two paragraphs what Alberto Gonzales did wrong as Attorney General:

[H]e did not stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law, as an attorney general must. This administration has illegally spied on Americans, detained suspects indefinitely as “enemy combatants,” run roughshod over the Geneva Conventions, violated the Hatch Act prohibitions on injecting politics into government and defied Congressional subpoenas. In each case, Mr. Gonzales gave every indication of being on the side of the lawbreakers, not the law.

Mr. Gonzales signed off on the administration’s repugnant, and disastrous, torture policy when he was the White House counsel. He later helped stampede Congress into passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which endorsed illegal C.I.A. prisons where detainees may be tortured and established kangaroo courts in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to keep detained foreigners in custody essentially for life. He helped cover up and perpetuate Mr. Bush’s illegal wiretapping programs, both in the counsel’s job and as attorney general. The F.B.I. under his stewardship abused powers it was given after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the name of enhanced national security.

Knowingly endorsing torture -- to the dismal extent of pre-emptively covering the asses of the perpetrators -- clinches it in my mind.

I don't care what the tissue-thin "justifications" are for untrammeled torture during the ever shifting Bush/Cheney War on Whatever.

Every sane, sentient, experienced person from seemingly opposite sides abhors and opposes torture, even as a desperate eleventh hour means to collect intelligence. Whether it's human rights workers, foreign policy and foreign aid experts, intelligence analysts or military personnel: torture is not only inhumane, socially regressive and against every ideal and promotion of democracy abroad, it doesn't glean reliable information.

Even in emergencies -- perhaps especially then -- it's unreliable.

Gonzales' contribution to this historical low point was in providing a shabby legal framework for the administration to use torture when and where it wanted, without oversight or thought, and, should it ever come to light, with glib built in excuses to dodge accountability (as if that were possible with torture.)

Thus agents of this administration, whether in the military or from "private" goon squads and militia untethered from the higher ups directing this, demonstrably and routinely engaged in torture to harvest factesque statements to spin into support, after the fact, for purely rhetoric-based war hype.

Gonzales promoted torture being practiced on people held in detention, and who by long held treaty the state was entrusted to maintain a certain standard of humane treatment. Torture was used for nothing more than a fishing expedition for information that might be useful.

This isn't just lamentable, corrupt or criminal but monstrous. It's as bad as torture used experimentally, possibly even worse; it's torture used idley.

Gonzales applied his training, ability and opportunities in life to gin up the frailest legal cover for crimes against humanity. He did it rathionally in the cold light of day just so the perpetrators could cover their own asses.

And, foolish man, he's blind to the likelihood that he'll be a main patsy should the sudden appearance of an actual opposition call the admin to account on this when full details emerge from the most opaque Executive ever. (There will be more than a full accounting on this; there'll be reckoning, whether domestically generated or from the shambles of post-war Iraq.)

To my mind, there's plenty in Gonzales' long trail to make him the worst in his post, though the torture alone would settle it.

When he's hauled before any investigatory body to answer for his criminal contribution to the worst, most corrupt administration in history, I do hope that when he's found guilty of crimes against the state and against humanity, it's the torture that nails him.

I don't have a spreadsheet to detail the abuses / crimes / of each of these characters,

however, as a non lawyer with only a street sense of what 'justice' should be -

I can NOT imagine that these guys did much of anything to make the legal system operate fairly for all, fairness meaning to this unwashed peee-on that this under the median income peee-on gets treated as well as those who have lots of gold coins to drop into lady justice's scales.

Sure, gonzo is gone - now the lame pathetic Dems can forget about the Justice Dept and the AG ...

and the thugs will nominate some low profile white collar criminal with years of twisting the law to insure that the legal system works for the rich, by the rich, of the rich ???

Another reason to celebrate, here's one from me and Freddie Mercury straight to you George, Another One Bites The Dust. Alberto was just the fall guy for your crimes, but as Led Zeppelin once said, Your Times Is Gunna Come. Here's a little rewrite of that song just for you Georgie, coming soon to a youtube video near you.

Lyin', cheatin', hurtin, that's all you seem to do.
Messin' around every lobbyist in town,
Puttin' me down for thinkin' of some-president new.
Always the same, playin' your game,
Drive me insane, trouble is gonna come to you,
One of these days and it won't be long, We'll look for you but Georgie, you'll be gone.
This is all I gotta say to you Dubya:

[Chorus]
Your Time Is Gonna Come [X4]

Made up my mind to break you this time,
Won't be so fine, it's your turn to cry.
Do want you want, we won't take the brunt.
It's fadin' away, can't feel you anymore.
Don't care what you say 'cause you're goin' away to stay,
Gonna make you pay for that great big hole in my country.
People talkin' all around,
Watch out Georgie, no longer
Is the joke gonna be on our hearts.
You been bad to us Dubya,
But it's coming back home to you.